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A paedophile caught with more than 50,000 twisted photos of children aged as young as eight walked free from court.

Married pensioner Darryl Walters amassed the sickening collection of pictures and videos over a period of some 10 years.

The 71-year-old dad later confessed to police that he viewed the vile images of child sex abuse victims on a daily basis.

But he was spared jail after a judge said he was "a good husband and a constructive member of the local community".

Cheshire Police received intelligence that indecent images were being made available over the internet from Walters' Warrington home in 2018.

Liverpool Crown Court heard officers raided the property in May that year, when they seized the OAP's mobile phone, laptop and hard drives.

Walters was present at the time and arrested, and admitted in an interview that he had been viewing the images online on a daily basis for the past decade.

Paul Blasbery, prosecuting, said the equipment was analysed by police experts, who found a total of 51,189 indecent pictures and videos.

He said most of them showed young girls, aged between eight and 12-years-old.

Walters, who has no previous convictions, admitted one count of possessing and three counts of downloading indecent images of children.

The pervert, of Meeting Lane, Penketh, was supported in the public gallery by his wife.

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Martin Pizzey, defending, described his client as being "embarrassed, ashamed and remorseful" and urged the judge to follow the recommendation of a pre-sentence report by sparing him jail.

The court heard Walters claimed he started looking at the images as a distraction from his personal problems, including his son being a heroin addict.

Judge Neil Flewitt, QC, said: "If you didn't realise it at the time, I hope you realise now that each of those young girls you were looking at on your computer screen was a child that was being sexually abused.

"Children like that are sexually abused in huge numbers because there is a market among people like you who view these images.